Who We Are
We are a Community Based Enterprise that works with individuals, neighborhoods, groups, schools and community organizers to create abundant, low-maintenance and beautiful edible gardens. Our efforts and actions are localized, committed, and work from the inside-out in the communities we live, work and play in.
We view our relationships to each other, through broad-based community development organizations like Good Work, and to our clients in the greater Durham community as the cornerstone for regenerative edible landscapes and community gardens.
Keith Shaljian, 31, grew up on Long Island and experienced illegitimate power and authority first hand playing high school football. He attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY receiving a BA in Philosophy and Public Praxis, a program that integrates public and academic work. In DC, he worked as a line cook, production assistant with Pacifica Radio's Peacewatch, freelance journalist, waiter, car courier, indoor painter, and gardener. After taking several permaculture and biointensive trainings and apprenticeships, he co-founded Bountiful Backyards after moving to North Carolina in 2006.
Christopher Rumbley, 28, grew up in Randolph Co., home of the pottery capital of the US, the NC Zoo and the first Baptist Church in the South. His favorite questions growing up where, "what if?" and "what do you think?". After receiving a B.A. in Psychology from UNC, he took on NYC and New Orleans. Along the way he began studying permaculture. He is a co-operator of Bountiful Backyards and a co-founder of Sustainable Vocations--North Carolina, a green entrepreneurial training program for young adults. From backyards to a community scale, he helps individuals, community organizations, city departments and small businesses apply wholistic and regenerative approaches toward more resilient community development.
Sarah Vroom, 28, grew up in rural North Idaho and moved to the Bay Area attending Mills College. After receiving a B.A. in Environmental Studies and seeing first hand the realities of industrial agricultural in California, she studied permaculture with Christopher Shein at the Oakland Permaculture Institute. She is a lead designer and client liason, educational outreach and community workshop coordinator, and project coordinator with Bountiful Backyards. She is a member of the Durham Bike Coop and DJ extraordinaire out and about Durham.
Kate DeMayo, 31, grew up in the Garden State (NJ) earning a B.A. in English/Gender Studies from Rutgers University. For many years she gardened behind a sinking millhouse in Carrboro, working at Weaver Street Market and later in women’s health. In 2009, Kate worked as the Campaign Manager for Sustainable Food North Carolina via CFSA, coordinating a statewide coalition advancing sustainable agriculture policy at the NC General Assembly. Kate’s work in reproductive justice and as board secretary for Choice USA gives her great insight in to community based enterprise & cooperative development work. A beekeeper and plant enthusiast, Kate acts as a community liason, coordinating community workshopss, popular education, and special projects for BBY.
David Benfield, 34 was raised in Durham and comes to BBY with a diverse background including studying mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California. After college, he worked as a web director for a nonprofit online newspaper, a client liason in a web consulting firm, and green building. His journey toward sustainability and permaculture started in the late 90s when an Amish friend asked him what he thought it would look like to live intentionally in the modern world according to Christian principles. David is the office manager, client liason, and is increasingly involved with design and installation.
Omar McMillan,20 from Miami FL is continuing an apprenticeship that began with the Mayor's Summer Youth Work Program in the Fall of 2009 that placed him with Bountiful Backyards and Good Work. With 3 years of Landscaping experience from MDM landscaping he helps with our installations and community based projects. He is also working on his Certification for PV installation from North American Board of Certified Energy practitioners (NABCEP) as well as taking courses in Sustainable Landscaping and Design at Durham Tech Community College.
Ishmael Dennis, 20, from Durham is also continuing an apprenticeship that began with the Mayor's Summer Youth Work Program in the Fall of 2009 that placed him with Bountiful Backyards and Good Work. He is studying medicinal herbs and plants, helping with our installations and community based projects, and working on getting a college degree at NCCU.
Greater Community Support Network:
John Parker, hails from North Carolina's Sandhills area in the Piedmont region. He strives to be a good steward of his talents, develop transformative relationships, nurture good work that advances the greater good, and encourage others to do the same. He leads Good Work, a community development organization with a mission to strengthen people, places, and communities through economic empowerment, entrepreneurship, and sustainable development. He acts informally as a peer mentor and formally as a fiscal agent for Bountiful Backyard's community development projects.
Chuck Marsh, 48, grew up in South Carolina and lives in Black Mountain, NC where he runs Useful Plants Nursery with his wife Marjorie and assistant Bruce Johnston. Their nursery is where all of our organically raised fruit trees get their first chance to be multi-year producers and providers of abundance. Chuck has designed and installed living systems for over three decades and is a constant source of inspiration and a mentor for all of us.
Darcey Martin, 36, grew up on a farm in rural N.E. Iowa. Darcey is an active Master Gardener Volunteer with the Durham County Extension office, is a professionally trained photographer, and a Reiki Master. She is passionate about sustainable organic gardening and the relationship between plants and their human stewards. Currently she teaches horticulture in the prison system using ecological gardening practices as a guide for rehabilitation.
Sammy Slade, 34, Grew up in Chapel Hill and Colombia. Carrboro is his home where he has been hard at work establishing a more resilient community that can cope and mitigate the 'peak everything' world. To this end he has co-founded both the Carrboro Greenspace and the CCGC community garden. His community work and experience has led him to study, seek and implement sustainable ways for organizing and values Bountiful Backyards as an organizational model for sustainable community activism. Currently he serves as an Alderman with the town of Carrboro. His primary gardening interests are in community gardening and bio-intensive gardening.
Paul Drake, 24, from Oak Ridge, TN, is an apprentice with Bountiful Backyards. He comes with experience as a garden manager at Spence's Educational Farm and a carpenter and crew leader at Habitat for Humanity. He has an interest in ecological design both in landscapes and in architecture. In addition to apprenticing, he takes classes at CCCC in Pittsboro, where he is currently studying permaculture with Harvey Harman.
Rob Jones, 27, grew up in Silver Spring, MD and has degrees in biology and environmental education. He is currently working on growing and organizing a group of young farmers called the Crop Mob. Rob is also facilitating the establishment of two community gardens in Pittsboro, NC. Radical educational theory and edible/medicinal mushrooms are of particular interest to him, but Rob also has a strong understanding of human communities and natural systems.
Stephen Hren, 34, is from Cary, NC, and is the coauthor with his wife Rebekah of the The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit. He has been an organic gardener for over a dozen years and propagates plants for Bountiful Backyards. He also writes and installs solar air heaters, and is a co-organizer for NC Powerdown, which helps facilitate the Triangle community's transition to a post-fossil fuel world. He also has an inordinate fondness for red clover.
Susan Quinby-Honer, 50, hails from the Northeast but has called Raleigh, NC home for the last twenty years. She is an expert in vermicomposting, providing demonstrations at schools and for private individuals. Susan leads seasonal worm composting demonstrations for Bountiful Backyards Co-Op members, clients, and friends.
Kevin Svara, 33, is a Raleigh, NC native who specializes in historical restoration carpentry. He graduated from Evergreen College in Olympia, WA and has studied permaculture, organic farming, soil science and general biology at many different places over the last decade.
Rebekah Hren, 33, is a Raleigh, NC native and author. She is a solar electrician that has taught regional and national courses through SEI and installed hundreds of solar system installations around the Triangle. A talented organic gardener, she specializes in native plants and flowers as well as uncommon fruit trees.
